˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜

IT was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE ;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea :
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
I and my ANNABEL LEE :
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful ANNABEL LEE ;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me —
Yes ! — that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.
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But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we —
Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE :

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE ;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE ;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, — my darling, — my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜

Elf.Ed Note

* For a very, very funny parody of this poem, when the discovery of cannibalism in the Fiji Islands was made later in the 1800’s, see A Poe-m of Passion by C. F. Lummis, on this site.